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And I’ll dance with you in Vienna,
I’ll be wearing a river’s disguise.
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
My mouth on the dew of your thighs.
And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
With the photographs there and the moss.
And I’ll yield to the flood of your beauty,
My cheap violin and my cross.
~Leonard Cohen, “Take This Waltz”~
She’s inside of the science room, and its nighttime. Stokely doesn’t know how she got here, but she knows that she wants to get out. Its dark, the only light a pale silver stream of moonshine from the boarded up window. Whoever boarded it up obviously didn’t do a very good job of it, since the light is getting through.
“Stokely. Are you sure?”
Stokely turns. Behind her, Mary Beth is sitting calmly, hands crossed on top of the lab table. Her blonde hair glistens wetly in the light of the moon.
When Stokely tries to speak, it feels like her mouth is full of water. “Sure of what?”
“Sure of Stan. Sure of yourself. Are you sure the aliens haven’t gotten to you?” Her accent is like sour buttermilk, yellow and sweet with only a subtle shade of black beneath, like something is rotting.
“Well, you’re dead, aren’t you?”
“Aren’t I?” Mary Beth shakes her head, standing up. She’s naked and wet, and she looks like every beautiful girl in the locker room that Stokely could never hope to be. “You don’t sound very sure, Stokes.”
Stokely backs up. Steps, steps, until her back is against the blackboard. “Don’t call me that.”
“Then what should I call you? Dyke, freak? Stan’s girlfriend? Does he make you happy, Stokely?” Mary Beth takes two faltering steps towards Stokely, then slumps over with a tiny whimper, leaning against the remains of the shattered fishbowl. Her fingers are bleeding. There is blood seeping down her thighs.
Riverwater, that’s what her voice reminds me of, Stokely thinks suddenly. She spits, tasting sewage. Her mouth is too full for her to answer the question.
* * *
Stan catches her after second period every day. Always with a kiss, a hug, a tiny gesture of affection. She wants to hold onto him until she can’t anymore, but he always breaks away quickly. On the run, he says, to third, to fourth, to meet his tutor, to wherever the fuck. Can’t be late. He’s so caught up in his studies that he’s never really been caught up in her. Even when they get together, they just study. Sometimes she kisses him and he kisses back, but it feels empty. It feels like she got what she wanted and now she has nothing to want anymore.
She eats lunch with Casey now, sitting with him in the bleachers. He’s the only one who never mentions aliens to her, and she likes that. Stan always wants to talk about it, like he can’t believe what they did, that they saved the freaking world, can you believe it! Like it was some TV show, X-Files come to life. She sometimes wonders if he even remembers what really happened, what he said to her. He tells her he’s beautiful now, and it makes her shiver. If he remembers what he said to her when he had the aliens inside him, and he still can tell her that, then what does that mean?
The problem is, Stan doesn’t seem to have any awareness of anything until it practically slaps him in the face, and she hates herself for wondering if maybe he is just a dumb jock after all.
* * *
“So you’re a lesbian?” Mary Beth asks. Or says, really. No question mark.
“No,” Stokely says, looking away. Its daytime now, or something like it, and blinding light shines in through the window. At least, she thinks its light. They’re still in the science lab. Everyone is gathered around a table in the front of the classroom, looking at something, and she can’t see anyone’s faces. It all feels terribly familiar.
Mary Beth sits next to her. “Oh, but be one. I want you to be. Fly free, little bird.”
“Dykes don’t fly, bitch,” Stokely says dully. Looks back at Mary Beth. This time her clothes are on. Laura Ashley, something like that. She thinks about asking for style tips. Fingers her own purple skirt gently, looks at the lilacs on her sweater.
“God, what happened to you, Stokely?” Mary Beth asks. This time it’s a real question. Stokely looks up and Mary Beth looks sickened. “Jesus. You’re just like everyone else now.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Stokely asks. She’s tired of this. She wants to find out what they’re all looking at, what Mr. Furlong is so excited about. She can’t see his face, but she knows he must be there.
“That’s never what I wanted, Stokely. You were so beautiful before. Your little bird flying free. Now you’re just a joke.”
“You’re dead, Mary Beth. Stay dead.”
“No, you’re dead,” Mary Beth says. She sounds angry. “You’re dead, Stokely. Look at you.”
Stokely opens her mouth to speak, and the next thing she knows, Mary Beth has a hand over her face. Something squirming and alive forces its way down her throat, and the last thing Stokely sees is Mary Beth spinning around and walking away. The label on the back of her dress says Laura Ashley.
* * *
Stan’s her boyfriend, but she likes being around Casey best now. Casey doesn’t like to talk about what happened, even though he got the most out of it—fame and fortune and the love of a beautiful woman. What more could anyone want?
Stokely wonders. Because Casey’s not happy, even though he has all that, everything he’s ever wanted. He takes Stokely with him to football games but he never has his eyes on Delilah. In fact, he never looks at Delilah anymore, even though they’re ostensensibly together.
Delilah is the same as she ever was. Happy, or pretending to be, and clinging desperately to what she thinks will get her out of this fucking town. Cheerleading, journalism, her new famous boyfriend, whatever. Sometimes Stokely thinks she sees a glint of desperation in Delilah’s eyes when she looks at Casey, but it’s fleeting. Delilah would never let something like that show for too long.
Casey doesn’t know how not to let it show. That’s why he never looks at Delilah anymore. They’re both fucking miserable with each other, but they’re both too afraid to let it go: this perfect dream of Casey’s, this perfect future of Delilah’s.
Casey got what he wanted, too, and he isn’t happy either. Stokely wonders if there even is such a thing as a happy ending.
* * *
Mary Beth spits water at her like a seal. “I betcha can’t catch me.”
“I don’t want to catch you,” Stokely says from the side of the pool. She watches Mary Beth dip under the water, hair like a golden banner behind her. She’s naked again, apparently, but the sun is still shining, reflecting off the splashes of water on the tile.
For a while, Stokely just watches her swim. Mary Beth takes to water like a fish, which is only natural, but she looks like poetry when she moves. Which is unnatural, Stokely thinks. Completely.
“Why don’t you just go back to your natural state?” Stokely calls out. “You might as well.”
Mary Beth’s head emerges from the water. She’s not even breathing hard. Does she even breathe? Stokely’s pretty sure she’d have noticed if Mary Beth hadn’t been breathing.
“Are you sure?” Mary Beth asks. Her voice sounds strange, head tipped to one side.
Stokely shrugs. “You might as well. Its not like I haven’t seen it before.”
“Got any scat?” Mary Beth says, but before Stokely can answer she grins sunnily and dives back into the water. Soon her body is morphing into its natural form, like a squid and a cockroach and a motherfucking alien, all in one body.
She still looks like poetry, Stokely observes. Unnatural poetry, unnatural but beautiful.
* * *
“But its so crazy,” Stan says. “It’s like a movie, you know? Its like fucking Independence Day, and we beat them! Its just like those books you used to love, all that science fiction shit.”
“Yeah,” Stokely says. She strokes Stan’s back, and thinks that he feels like soft cotton sheets, warm and soft and comfortable. She likes having him on top of her.
He leans down to kiss her, and murmurs into her cheek, “I just…sometimes I can’t believe it ever happened. It’s like a dream. And, like, I remember what it felt like when it was inside me. I actually thought I was happy, can you believe that?”
“Yeah,” she says again. “Hard to believe.”
“What was it like for you?” he asks.
She shrugs, and pulls the sheet up over his naked shoulder. “You know. Probably the same as it was for you.”
“You were happy?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I thought I was happy.”
* * *
“You liked it.”
“No, I didn’t,” Stokely says immediately, her mouth moving before she even realizes it. “Liked what?”
“Liked being a part of me.” Mary Beth sits down next to her on the bench, and her blue eyes glitter like sun on the water.
“Fuck you.” The wind smells like chlorine, but they’re outside. The sun would be shining down on their heads if a tree wasn’t shading them. “Shouldn’t you be in the water? Better find a pool or you’ll dry out.”
“What, you care now, Stokely?” Mary Beth asks slyly.
“No, I just want you to fucking leave me alone.”
“Oh, I don’t think you do, Stokes. I think you want me to stay. This is your head, after all. Would I be here if you didn’t want me to be?”
Stokely looks at her, and Mary Beth just looks back. It’s so quiet. Its like the campus is empty except for them. Stokely wants to speak, just to break the silence, but she can’t think of anything to say.
* * *
Sometimes they pass each other in the halls, her and Delilah. She’s usually hanging on Casey’s arm, ignoring the fact that his gaze slides off her like oil in water, or she’s with her little cheerleader crew, or kissing some teacher’s ass.
Sometimes they just look at each other, and Stokely thinks she sees something. Something changed in Delilah’s angry little gaze, something real. Something different from all the other bitchy cheerleaders with drunk, abusive mothers. Delilah’s story is old but Delilah is new. Sometimes.
Sometimes Delilah looks just the same, and Stokely wonders if all that’s changed are the circumstances.
* * *
Its nighttime again, and they’re in Zeke’s garage, but Zeke isn’t there. Neither are any of the others. Stokely would ask where they are, but Mary Beth probably doesn’t know either. Hell, Mary Beth is probably so fucking high right now that she doesn’t know her own name.
Stokely giggles at the thought, and Mary Beth turns inquisitively. Her eyes are clear and blue, and just a little bit worried. “Stokely?” she says. “You okay, there?”
“Oh, that’s right,” Stokely snorts. “You’re a fucking alien, you can’t get high. Poor thing.” And that just makes her laugh harder.
“I’m even allergic to aspirin,” Mary Beth says sweetly, and pets Zeke’s little white mouse. Its cuddled up in her hand, sleeping, its tiny eyes tightly shut.
Stokely laughs again, and Mary Beth smiles, teeth gleaming in the dim light, and sits next to her on the couch. Her free hand comes up to stroke Stokely’s short hair back from her face. “You’re off your goddamn head, Stokes,” she says fondly.
“Don’t call me that,” Stokely says, trying to sound stern. She can’t keep a straight face, even snorting a giggle at the thought. Heh. Straight. “Only Casey calls me that.”
“Mmm,” Mary Beth says. Her tongue is between her teeth, pink in white in pink, pink lipgloss. Mary Beth is the type of girl who is perfectly white and perfectly blonde and just fucking perfect. Stokely wants to touch her, see if she’s real. But of course she isn’t real, she’s a fucking alien. “Mmm,” Mary Beth says, and her pink pink mouth comes down and she kisses Stokely softly, wetly. Her mouth tastes sweet and bitter.
Stokely lets her. Just…lets her, only for a second, because it’s just easier and the scat is making her want to touch someone, and Stan isn’t here.
Stan isn’t here.
Stokely pulls away, quickly, and Mary Beth’s eyes are still closed. She licks her lips. “Mmm,” she says again, and opens her fist. Zeke’s mouse falls to the floor with a quiet little thump. When it hits the ground it unrolls from the ball it was curled into, and Stokely can see its tiny pink insides.
* * *
She smokes now, because its just easier, an excuse to get away. Stokely knows it’s a cop-out—she’s always doing things the easy way. That’s why people thought she was a dyke for so damn long, because it was just easier than saying, I’m afraid that no one will like me. I’m afraid that people will get to know me. I’m afraid.
Smoking is easier now because Stan hates it, but he’s so pussy-whipped from Delilah’s old influence that he just sighs and unwraps his arm from around her waist when she says, “Smoke break.” She goes out by the parking lot during nutrition, when the campus aides are busy with around the rest of the campus, so it’s usually empty.
She only sees Zeke there once. He’s against the cement wall she usually leans against, and he has a cigarette in his mouth, lighter already out to light hers. She doesn’t own a lighter, not even a cheap plastic one. She puts the cigarette to her mouth and breaths in, hating the taste.
“How you been,” he says. Its not really a question, and he’s looking far away from her, across the parking lot.
She shrugs, not caring if he can see it or not, and sucks in another lungful of smoke. She wants to light her own fucking jeans on fire, burn holes into her shell-pink shirt. These clothes feel stupid on her, here with Zeke when he knows what she’s really like. Black and black and black, just like him.
Its weird. She feels fine in these clothes around Stan, even around Casey.
He grunts, and inhales. They smoke in silence for a while, and it’s nice. No explanations, no questions, and he’s not going to talk to her about the fucking aliens, either. It’s just him and Casey, apparently, who don’t want to talk about it with her. Well, and Delilah, but Delilah never talks to her about anything.
He drops his cigarette to the ground with loose fingers. Grinds it out beneath his heel and turns to her, eyes burning. “How’s Casey?” he asks. This time it’s a real question. “Happy with the Delilah-bitch? He get what he wanted?”
Stokely breathes in, then exhales in a sigh. “Yes. No. Does it really matter to you? Do you really care if I’m happy, or if Stan’s happy, or is it just Casey? Cause I don’t recall you giving a fuck about him or me before the whole alien thi—” She shuts her mouth, but it’s too late. The word’s out there, and Zeke’s closed up. She’s closed up. She wishes she were closed up.
Zeke starts to walk away, and she throws down her cigarette. Doesn’t grind it out, just leaves it there to burn. “Hey, Zeke,” she calls. When he turns around, his face is dark, impassive. “You still make scat?”
“No,” he calls back, and then turns to walk back to campus.
He’s lying. He doesn’t trust her, even after all they’ve been through together, back when she was one of the only people he could trust. If the aliens come back, the only one who knows where the scat is will be Zeke. She bets he doesn’t even make it in his garage anymore.
She bets he has a lot of it by now.
Good for him, she thinks, watching him walk away. Next time, he can be the hero.
* * *
“Come here,” Mary Beth says. When Stokely reaches her, her hands tangle in Stokely’s hair and pull her close, closer, so that they’re almost sharing skin. Mary Beth kisses her, and it tastes like wet, warm candy.
Stokely feels…beautiful. Stan was right. This is the way she’s supposed to be, not Stokely at all but a part of something larger, something wonderful. She can smell the popcorn that her economics teacher, Mrs. Trent, is making. She can feel the fabric of the couch beneath her mom’s arm, back at home. She can see the wet field outside through Gabe’s eyes. She can taste herself, warm and moist, in Mary Beth’s mouth.
She’s a part of Mary Beth now, and it feels beautiful.
She wants to keep kissing forever, keep feeling Mary Beth’s smooth wet skin beneath her fingers, keep tasting Mary Beth’s sweetness and her own, keep feeling her own damp hair through Mary Beth’s fingers. Wants to stay a part of everything and everyone, wants to be this happy forever and ever. She’s happy. She’s happy.
She pulls away for a second to ask Mary Beth if she’s happy too, because that’s the one thing she can’t feel. But when she pulls away Mary Beth isn’t there anymore. Instead it’s Casey, a pen in his hand, glistening with white caffeine fizz. When she opens her mouth to speak, he drops it to the floor and grabs her by the shouilders.
“She’s dead, Stokes, I killed her. I saved us,” he says, sounding like he’s barely able to believe it. When Stokely looks down, there’s just dust, just dust on the floor. She opens her mouth, but can’t speak, so Casey speaks for her. “Are you…you, Stokes?”
Her mouth opens. Words come out. “I think so,” she says. When she looks in Casey’s eyes, she can see that neither of them believe it. “I’m me. I’m okay now.”
“Me too,” he says. “Me too.”
* * *
One night, she and Casey get drunk. At her house, of course, because his parents would shit a brick, and her parents just don’t give a fuck.
She pours him another vodka and cranberry, heavy on the cranberry because Casey can’t stand strong drinks, and then hands it to him. “Thanks,” he says, and takes a sip. He’s drunk on two drinks, and he’s talking now. About the aliens. She’s not sure if she’s grateful or just tired. “The thing is,” he continues, “Delilah says she loves me now, but every time she says it I see her the way she was in that bus, that night. She never wanted me before. You know what I mean?”
“No,” Stokely says, then, “Yes. Yes.” Because she does. Because this is Casey, and because Stan still calls her beautiful and when he kisses her, his tongue feels like an alien wriggling its way down her throat.
“Sometimes I look at myself,” Casey says dreamily, “and I see the things I do, the way I act now, the way other people act towards me, and I wonder if they won. If the aliens never really went away, or if they’re here now in all of us and we just don’t know it. If we didn’t defeat them, really.”
“Something feels unfinished,” Stokely agrees.
“But then I think about how I felt when the aliens were in me. That one second when they were, you know…just, in me, and all I could feel was you, and Zeke, and Stan and everyone else, and I felt so goddamn happy that I didn’t want her to die, then. I wanted her to stay alive.”
“Mmm,” Stokely says. She reaches for her drink with one hand, not minding when she spills it, blood-red cranberry staining her carpet. She licks it off her hand, sweet and bitter. “I have dreams about her sometimes,” she says softly. “Mary Beth.” It’s the first time Stokely’s said her name since Casey killed her. When she looks up, Casey’s eyes don’t look quite so drunk anymore.
“Dreams?” he says. Its not really a question. “Hmm.”
THE END
